Generally, in an image forming apparatus of the electrophotographic recording type, an electrostatic latent image is formed by irradiating laser beam on a photoconductive drum. The photoconductive drum forms a toner image with the toner supplied from a developer, and then the toner image on the photoconductive drum is transferred to a paper to form an image thereon. In the developer, the toner is replenished from a toner container when the toner in the developer is insufficient.
In addition, the toner container is provided with a toner filling port arranged at one end portion positioned on the front side of the image forming apparatus. In addition, a handle for inserting the toner container into or removing the toner container from the image forming apparatus is also arranged at the same end portion. In recent years, there has been a demand for a reduction in size of the image forming apparatus. As a result, the size of the toner container has also been required to be reduced.
However, the size of the toner filling port cannot be too small since the filling efficiency is deteriorated if it is set too small. In addition, from the viewpoint of operability, the size of the handle also cannot be too small. Thus, there remains a problem that the handle becomes smaller in a case of increasing the size of the toner filling port, and the toner filling port becomes smaller in a case of increasing the size of the handle.
In addition, a rotary axis of a mixer for stirring toner is installed at one end portion of the toner container. It is necessary to arrange the toner filling port at a position that avoids the rotary axis. However, there is also a limit in the increase of the size of the toner filling port.